Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson pressured Bank of America to stay silent about its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch – a deal that later triggered a government bailout of BofA – according to testimony by Ken Lewis, BofA’s chief executive, reports the WSJ. Lewis told prosecutors in February that he believed Paulson and Bernanke were instructing him to keep silent while the two sides negotiated government funding to help BofA absorb Merrill and its huge losses, according to the transcript.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 and is filed under M&A, People. Tagged with BofA, merrill lynch. Edit this entry.